As a founder member of Mystery Women in 1997, promoting Crime Fiction has always been my passion.
Following the closure of Mystery Women, a new group was formed on 30th January 2012 promoting crime fiction.
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Monday, 28 December 2015

‘The Dead Dog Day’ by Jackie Kabler

Sometimes a murder mystery novel is exactly that: there’s a murder, and
the protagonist, detective or amateur sleuth, sets about solving the mystery of
whodunnit.

And sometimes it’s... not.
There’s certainly a murder in The Dead Dog Day, and animal lovers will
be relieved to know the victim is not the dog. Jeanette Kendrick, the abrasive
and highly unpopular editor of a morning TV show, plummets to her death from a
seventh-floor window in chapter one, and all the signs are that she didn’t go
willingly. The aftermath of the killing is threaded through the rest of the
narrative and is eventually solved, but the detective in charge of the case is
far from centre stage, and the main protagonist makes no attempt to be an
amateur sleuth.

The author is better known as
a TV presenter, and worked on a well-known morning show for a number of years,
so she knows her subject. The narrative follows Cora Baxter and her technical
team for several months, as they rush up and down the country in the small
hours chasing quirky stories, with brief respites in her home in Cheltenham or
London where the programme is based. The quirky stories are highly
entertaining, as are the rivalries and friendships and the unlikely romance
between Cora and an action-man hero of another TV show – but the crime-solving
seems to take second place.

Occasional scenes at the
police station, or between Cora and DCI Adam Bradberry, the SIO on the case,
keep the murder in focus; several suspects are eliminated quite quickly; and
some vital evidence which Cora chooses not to disclose to Adam proves to be
rather important towards the end. But as murder mystery plots go, this one was
a tad thin on actual investigation and suspense.

That said, the showbiz and TV
studio background comes to vivid life, and the characters are lively and
believable. There is a clear narrative line; and the book is a diverting
page-turner, pacy and well-written, well sprinkled with amusing vignettes, some
of which are so unlikely that they have to be based on real events. When the
denouement finally comes, with scant help from the police (and none at all from
Cora, it has to be said), it all fits together and makes perfect sense. It’s a
fun read, though possibly not one for crime fiction purists who prefer the
murder investigation to take pride of place.

The dog, in case you’re
wondering, died of natural causes.

------

Reviewer: Lynne Patrick

Jackie Kablerworked as a newspaper reporter and then in television
news for twenty years, including nearly a decade on GMTV. She later appeared on
BBC and ITV news, presented a property show for Sky, hosted sports shows on
Setanta Sports News and worked as a media trainer for the Armed Forces. She is
now a presenter on shopping channel QVC. Jackie lives in Gloucestershire with
her husband, who is a GP.

Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen,
and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but
never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher
for a few years, and is proud to have launched several careers which are now
burgeoning. She lives on the edge of rural Derbyshire in a house groaning with
books, about half of them crime fiction.

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About Me

From an early age I have been a lover of crime fiction. Discovering like minded people at my first crime conference at St Hilda’s Oxford in 1997, I was delighted when asked to join a new group for the promotion of female crime writers. In 1998 I took over the running of the group, which I did for the next thirteen years.
During that time I organised countless events promoting crime writers and in particular new writers. But apart from the sheer joy of reading, ‘I actually love books, not just the writing, the plot or the characters, but the sheer joy of holding a book has never abated for me. The greatest gift of my life has been the ability to read'.